The pre-production stageExtended ArticleEverything You Need to Know About Video Pre-ProductionPre-production is the first and one of the most important stages of the video production process. If you’re thinking of hiring a video production… Read More essentially covers all your video planning. It’s the first and most important stage of the production process because it sets your entire video in motion. At this stage, you’ll want to clearly define the content of your video, get feedback from all relevant team members, and start booking and scheduling your shoot. If you’re hiring a production team or agency, you’ll want to do all your company vetting, creative calls, and approvals here.

After you’ve honed in on your audience, focus in on where they spend the most time online. That is where you want to run your video content. For example, if your audience is on Facebook, you’ve got loads of helpful features to support your efforts and creative freedom. If your audience is largely on Instagram or YouTube, you’ll want to continue your analysis to see the style of video that works best on these highly visual platforms.
Another good news is that your videos don’t have to be perfect. It’s the content that matters! Latest research shows that users are mostly put off by videos that don’t explain the product or service clearly enough. Low quality and poor design didn’t matter nearly as much. So it’s fair to say that video is like pizza – when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good!
Mini-documentaries Extended ArticleAnatomy of a Mini-Doc: What It Is and How to Knock It Out of the Park“Documentary” used to be a dirty word to the average viewer. Normally educational, often stodgy, and more than a little cheesy, documentaries were the… Read More are less about your brand’s visual aesthetics and focus more on expressing your company’s core value or mission statement in a documentary-style format. This is usually accomplished through interviews with key company representatives, like founders, employees, or satisfied customers.Client: RFK - School for the Visual Arts & Humanities (LAUSD) To make a big impression, it’s important your mini-doc keeps it short and sweet. You want to highlight excellent sound bites that tell viewers exactly who you are, all while maintaining their attention. While feature-length documentaries have enough time to develop a full, three-act story, mini-docs don’t. They have to establish their story by quickly answering three crucial questions: what, why, and how. What is the focus of this video? Why should the viewer care about this? How does your subject work? This helps you get key pieces of information to your audience in a fun and interesting way.

You or your team can develop the videos themselves. If you plan to develop videos on a regular basis with a low budget, this may be the best option for you. However, if you do this you still want to ensure that the videos maintain a level of quality – even if they’re amateur productions. Spend some time researching how to create great video and consider taking a course that can provide you with additional insights.

Bryan is also one of the nation’s first Master Certified Local Experts with Constant Contact, having provided digital marketing strategy to well over 1,000 businesses since 2010. Bryan is a guest lecturer at the Sawyer School of Business and a contributor to several websites including Constant Contact, BlueHost, BusinessTown, and the Boston Business Journal.
If you’re a playful and peppy brand, animated video could be the footage that grabs your audience. Powtoon offers quality animated content that can add a new twist on your videos or showcase a brand in a playful way. If you’re looking for high-quality film footage that runs from hilarious to emotional, with a dabble of wow, the Promo video platform has a diverse offering to showcase any brand.

Create a content plan that outlines how many videos you’ll make, what type of videos, and where you’ll share them. This plan should include a wide variety of video types from case studies to interviews, testimonials, educational videos, etc. According to the Nonprofit Marketing Guide, “the most popular video for nonprofits is storytelling about participants or supporters with 60% of nonprofits creating them.” The second most popular videos are fundraising appeals, which one-third of nonprofits produce.

Deciding what story you want your video to tell can be the most fun and the most difficult part. You’ll want to outline the following four elements, which serve as theExtended ArticleHow Thoughtful Video Storytelling Can Give Your Business a Competitive AdvantageWhen you think about storytelling, you probably think about fairy tales and bedtime as a child. But storytelling can be so much more! It’s… Read More basic framework of your story.
You may remember George Takei from Star Trek but now he is managing exceptionally written social media channels and has grown a massive following. How did he do it? He has mastered the art of a strong caption. His captions have a clear point of view, are littered with emojis (not a must but a great addition for many brands) and make elicit an emotional reaction, and better yet the motivation to comment and/or share with friends. This can be from a simple statement or an interesting question, as long as it’s authentic.
Studies show that when viewing videos on social media, a viewer commonly first reads text within a video and then immediately bounces to the caption, often even before the video has run to completion. The caption on a video for social media can make or break a post. If posting on Facebook, the platform recommends choosing a descriptive title for your video that will make it easily searchable.
Extras are unique to your needs — you might benefit from behind-the-scenes footage, a quick photo session, or certain types of b-roll. Get it done! Any content you can create on set during production will only benefit you. It can add more long term value to your clients and give you more content to post. If you work with an agency, ask them what they can do. You might even ask for raw video footage so you can continue editing and repackaging your video for future use. Think about your needs and see what you can do!
Video Marketing is a good way to promote your business. However, it’s not that an easy task and sometimes you need a help from your co-workers like graphic designers if you don’t know how to create or draw your own icon or image to be used in the video. Though you can get from free stock photos and icons sites to compile it for your video, I think it’s better if you create your own.